Biomass accumulation and clogging in biotrickling filters for waste gas treatment. Evaluation of a dynamic model using dichloromethane as a model pollutant

Denitrification in biofilm configured horizontal flow woodchip bioreactor: effect of hydraulic retention time and biomass growth

“…Auria et al (1993) found that pressure losses in a solid state fermenter packed with wheat bran and cane bagasse were also controlled by mold growth, although these supports underwent changes due to microbial growth. Higher decay rates were usually reported for cells in biofilm systems than for cells in suspension, as stated by Okkerse et al (1999); therefore, lower net yield coefficients were expected in biofilm systems. This showed that the performance of the WBR was effectively enhanced by applying favorable HRT, biomass growth and NO 3 À -N concentration.…”

Advantages of combined UV photodegradation and biofiltration processes to treat gaseous chlorobenzene

“…The biomass (wet weight) inside the biofilters was measured intermittently by a weighing method illustrated by Okkerse et al [18]. The accumulated biomass was calculated from the difference between biofilter weights on the sample day and the initial weights (day 0).…”

Dynamics of cells attachment, aggregation, growth and detachment in trickle-bed bioreactors

“…A major drawback limiting the use of trickle-bed bioreactors for biological wastewater treatments is ascribed to the biological clogging phenomenon induced by the formation of an excessive amount of biomass which narrows the free interstitial space left to the fluids flow (van Lith et al, 1994;Sorial et al, 1995;Weber and Hartmans, 1996;Alonso et al, 1997;Okkerse et al, 1999). Excessive biomass formation and buildup leads to the progressive obstruction of the bed and is accompanied with a rise in pressure drop and flow channeling.…”

“…Currently, theoretical models describing the transient behavior of biomass accumulation (Deshusses et al, 1995;Alonso et al, 1997Alonso et al, , 1998Okkerse et al, 1999) and the biological clogging in trickle-bed bioreactors for waste-gas and wastewater treatment (Iliuta and Larachi, 2004a,b, 2005a, Iliuta et al, 2005 neglect the cells aggregation process and the aggregates detachment. An attempt has therefore been made with this work in which the authors strived to develop an Euler-Euler two-fluid dynamic model based on the volume-average mass, momentum equations, species balance equations, biomass dynamics equation, filtration equations for the cells and the aggregates and the discrete population balance equations for the cells agglomeration to describe two-phase flow and space-time evolution of biological clogging in trickle-bed bioreactors for wastewater treatment.…”